


places we break and bend

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Series: Asterisms [8]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Caretaking, F/M, First Kiss, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hair Brushing, Hair Washing, Hand Feeding, Hugs, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Dealing with everyday tasks while you're hurt or healing is frustrating. Jyn hates asking for help, but sometimes it's unavoidable.Or, three times Cassian managed to convince her to let him help anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Jyn is injured, and frustrated that dealing with her hair one-handed is impossible.
> 
>  **youareiron-andyouarestrong** picked 16 + 17 (“i just want to help you relax” + “does that feel good?”) from [this list](http://operaticspacetrash.tumblr.com/post/160231419216/angstysuggestive-sentence-starters).  
>  I played with the order & wording a little bit, but both prompts are in here!

Being injured is frustrating enough. When Jyn knows she’s going to be put on the disabled from duty list as soon as they touch down at base, it’s maddening. And it’s not a wound that bacta can fix quickly, more or less; she’s pretty sure she’s separated her shoulder, because she can’t raise her right arm properly. She curses the piece of shavit gutter that gave way, yanking her joint almost out of its socket as she tried to cling to the roof, before K-2 reached down and grabbed her collar.

Jyn’s never been great at using her left hand for anything but punching. For the next who-knows-how-long, eating and getting dressed—doing _anything_ —is going to be a slow, messy process. At the moment, she’s frustrated that taking down her hair one-handed is turning out to be impossible. It’s stringy, matted with dust and sweat, and not being able to deal with it is driving her crazy, but there’s no way she can do it on her own.

She bites her lip to hold back a scream and throws her brush at the bulkhead with a sharp crack. Maybe once they’ve landed, she can find Bodhi or Baze…

Cassian steps into the small cabin. “What was that?” The brush lying on the deck is apparently enough of an answer, because he looks from it to her and his cheek twists in the way Jyn’s learned means that he’s hiding a smile.

With a scowl, Jyn points at her useless right arm.

“Can I help?”

She should say no. She opens her mouth to refuse and then finds herself nodding.

Cassian moves quickly. Jyn doesn’t have time to feel self-conscious about her request before he’s scooped up the brush on his way across the cabin and is sitting down on the bench behind her, bracketing her legs with his. She tries to hunch forward, but that sends a bolt of pain through her shoulder so she holds herself stiffly upright, not leaning back against his chest.

His fingers search through her hair, finding and loosening the pins in the snarled knot at the back of her head. Each one is drawn out carefully, without snagging, and dropped on the bench beside his leg. Taking up the brush, he pulls it through her hair slowly and meticulously, section by section, detangling each knot from the ends up. Sometimes, if it’s very stubborn, he uses his fingers to tease the strands apart.

The rhythmic motion and sound of the bristles pulling through the strands of her hair is hypnotic. Jyn’s neck droops forward, her spine softening as she rocks back and forth with the slight tug and release of the brush. By the time Cassian’s methodically untangled each strand, her eyes are shut and she’s barely holding herself up. He puts down the brush and she sighs.

Then his fingers dig into her scalp, slowly working up from the nape of her neck to the crown of her head. Her chin drops to her chest and a thoughtless noise of pleasure, almost a moan, comes out of her mouth. 

Cassian twitches, his thumb catching in the thong her crystal hangs from, but his hands keep pressing into the muscles of her neck. “Does that feel good?”

“Mhmm.” Her wordless response makes her body resonate against his.

He continues kneading the tight column of her neck and Jyn begins to wonder if she’ll be able to stand after this. She’s pretty sure her knees are too weak to hold her up. When Cassian stops at last, she can’t help sighing in disappointment again. She expects him to get up and return to the cockpit, but instead he wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek on the top of her head. His breath ruffles her hair. “Just relax, Jyn.”

This isn’t what Jyn would call relaxing—but there’s no denying it feels good. She stops resisting the instinct to get closer and lets her body lean into his. She’s practically in his lap now, using his chest as a backrest. Her head fits in the notch under his chin and she rests her hands over his where they’re folded across her stomach. She doesn’t think she’s been this warm in months; she knows she hasn’t felt this safe in years.

Jyn has a thing about touching and being touched. It’s never easy or unthinking for her. She was shocked to find herself reaching out to Cassian casually, before she knew him as anything more than a tight-assed Rebel officer. Shielding him in the middle of a firefight on Jedha was one thing—the rules are different in combat—but when she couldn’t stop herself from squeezing his arm in a crowded shuttle, she realized something was very odd. The look on his face when she did (half astonishment, half shy pleasure) made her wonder whether Cassian had constructed some of the same invisible forcefields around himself.

Of course, when she believed they were counting down the last minutes of their lives, there was no point in restraint. She clung to him, let him lean on her, and took comfort in simple touch in a way she hadn’t been able to since childhood.

Jyn didn’t want to give that up once they were back with the Alliance, but finding plausible excuses to touch Cassian when they weren’t in mortal danger was harder. Now he seems to have decided that excuses are unnecessary, and Jyn is happy for it.

She squirms around on the bench until she’s half-turned toward him, looping her good arm around his waist between him and the bulkhead. Cassian curls forward into her, his back curving out of its usual parade-rest vertical, and wraps his arms tighter around her, pulling her closer and more securely into his lap. A gust of air escapes her lungs, and her shoulders sag as if the weight of Baze’s repeater cannon was just lifted off them.

“Relax,” Cassian whispers again. “I’ll wake you when we come out of hyperspace.” Jyn closes her eyes and sinks into his warmth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Tumblr "trick or treat" ficlet for **dorian**.

Jyn really doesn’t know how this happened.

Five minutes ago she was in the mess, eating dinner messily one-handed and complaining to Bodhi that the worst thing about this karking shoulder injury was not being able to get her hair properly clean. Sonic freshers do a lousy job on fur or hair, and it’s too awkward to wash it with one arm.

Now she’s sitting on a chair in front of the sink in Cassian’s quarters, a threadbare towel draped around her neck, while he stands with his hip at her shoulder and fiddles with the spigot to get the water the right temperature.

“Lean your head back.” One of his hands cups the back of her skull for support; with the other he pours warm water over her hair, careful not to splash her face. She closes her eyes anyway because she’s afraid of what her expression might look like while he’s this close to her. It was agonizing enough when he brushed her hair on the shuttle, but at least then he was behind her.

He tips her head farther back and sluices more water over her hair until it’s soaked through, small rivulets tickling the back of her neck. The water on her scalp is warm but the air in the room is cold. Jyn shivers from the contrast and Cassian pauses. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” she mutters hoarsely, tugging the towel higher around her neck.

She can feel the warmth of his body as he leans over to grab the shampoo and squeeze a cool dollop on the crown of her head. He shifts his hands, one still cradling the back of her neck while the other pulls the shampoo through her hair to the ends. He piles her hair at the top of her head, rubbing it into a sharply scented lather, and then starts methodically rolling his fingers into her scalp.

He works up from the nape of her neck, over the top of her skull to her hairline, then back from her temples. His fingertips move in tiny circles against her scalp, firm but gentle, and his thumbs press behind her ears. She almost moans when he digs into a sensitive spot she didn’t even know she had, but manages to bite her lip and keep quiet.

He stays silent too. There’s no noise but the trickle of the water in the basin, the rustle of the tiny bubbles in her hair popping, and the two of them breathing in sync. Cassian’s touch has come to mean safety to Jyn, and in the quiet and the darkness behind her eyes, she can’t help but lose herself to the feel of his hands in her hair. 

With her neck and chest bowed backward Jyn is forced to breathe shallowly, and she’s starting to feel light-headed. Her whole body is floating, her muscles languid and loose down to her toes. She concentrates on breathing and thinks of nothing. 

The silence is getting heavy by the time Cassian tips her head back again and splashes more warm water over her hair, rinsing the suds away. He runs his hands through her hair one last time to make sure all the soap is out, as skillful and thorough at this task as he is at everything else. The slight roughness of the clean strands catches against his fingertips as he draws her hair into a thick tail in his fist and twists it gently to squeeze the water out. A drop slides down her temple and he wipes it away with a thumb.

“All done.” His voice is low, but in the quiet between them it’s still startling.

Jyn opens her eyes. Cassian’s are fixed on her face, his expression caught between confused and—tender, she thinks. Maybe? Her pulse is drumming in her ears, throbbing in the hollow of her neck. When he looks at her that way, she wants to reach up, pull his head down and kiss him. She wants to know what he tastes like, how that small tick upward at the corner of his mouth would feel against her lips.

But this isn’t about what Jyn wants. She needed help, Cassian offered, and now they’re done. She takes a deep breath and tries to return to the normal, everyday world.

“Thanks,” she whispers, and slowly rolls her back upright. She grabs the towel around her neck and rubs at her hair with it, which has the helpful consequence of hiding her face.

Cassian steps back from the sink, away from her. By the time Jyn’s composed herself and dropped the towel, he’s managed to smooth his expression into something more neutral too. “Any time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I guess I have to give up and admit that my hair kink is showing... oh well.


	3. Chapter 3

The most reliable place Cassian’s path crossed Jyn’s was in the mess. When he was on base, an embarrassingly large portion of his day was spent looking forward to the moment at mealtimes when she'd come in and automatically take the seat beside him. It was comforting but unremarkable (to anyone but him, he hoped) if her thigh pressed alongside his, if his fingers brushed her wrist as they reached for the same bottle of Naboo fish sauce.

He didn’t have many other chances to indulge his craving for her touch. He was still in Intelligence and she’d been posted to Basic Training as an instructor, pending further assessment of her capabilities. At least, that was what Draven told Cassian every time he asked why he couldn’t work with her yet; in reality, he suspected, she’d become the object of a tug of war between Draven and the infantry CO, who didn’t want to give her up. A few times he’d been able to observe her hand-to-hand classes and she’d used him as her demonstration dummy, which was exhilarating if painful. He’d never enjoyed having the snot kicked out of him so much. 

But after she hurt her shoulder, she couldn’t teach and she’d started missing meals. This was the fifth day in a row he hadn’t seen her at all. And it wasn’t that she was eating at different times; he’d checked with Bodhi and the two Guardians, and they hadn’t seen her either.

He knew Jyn’s recuperation had not been going smoothly. She still didn’t have complete range of motion or strength in her right arm and couldn’t lift it over her head. She hated not being able to use it fully, and even though the medics kept telling her to take it slow, she’d set her rehab back this week—again—by pushing herself too hard. 

Jyn didn’t like showing weakness or vulnerability. She never asked for help, and rarely accepted it. You had to be in the right place at the right time and catch her off guard. A few times Cassian had been lucky enough to persuade her to let him help, but her general reaction whenever anyone offered assistance was to stare coolly at them until they gave up. At least, that was what she did to strangers; she snarled at her friends. 

Bracing himself to be snarled at, Cassian went to the barracks in search of Jyn. He found her sitting hunched on the edge of her bunk, gnawing with resignation on a ration bar. Her right arm was back in a sling.

“Coming for dinner?” he asked casually. 

“No,” she snapped. 

It pleased him more than it ought, being able to anticipate even such a small reaction from someone who was (as per Kay) continually unpredictable. His first impulse was to smile, but she didn’t look like she’d appreciate it right now. Instead, he propped his shoulder against the doorframe and composed his face into a gently inquisitive expression. “Why not?”

“What’s the point?” She held up the chunk of compressed protein paste in her left hand, scrunching her nose in disgust. “All I can eat one-handed is ration bars or soup. Both of which suck.”

Of course. Cassian should’ve figured it out much sooner. He scanned the sharp lines of her face and neck. It was hard to tell, since she was wearing thick pants and a quilted jacket, but she might already have lost a couple of kilos. 

“Give me five minutes,” he told her. 

In a stroke of luck, he didn’t even have to explain why he wanted to get behind the serving line; the cook on duty was a Clawdite he’d helped get an encrypted message to xer family last month. Xe let him pass and Cassian grabbed a tray. 

The problem was that since Jyn ate almost anything that didn’t run away, it was difficult to get a sense of her true likes and dislikes. A wide variety (as much as the Rebellion’s limited stores could provide) was the best idea. He scooped a pile of scrambled reconstituted protein onto a tin plate. With a lot of her favourite hot sauce poured over top, it would be more or less palatable. A couple of the steamed dumplings stuffed with who-knew-what were small enough to eat in one bite. And a bowl of noodles in thick curry; if he cut them into short pieces, Jyn could stab at them one-handed with a fork. There wasn’t a lot of sweet, calorie-dense food available but he snagged the last ripe joganfruit—he could peel it for her—and a square of baked nut paste with honey, hoping to coax her to eat both. 

Carrying a full tray he couldn’t hurry, but he walked as fast as he could. He didn’t want the food to be stone cold by the time he got back to her quarters.

She looked surprised when he returned and thumped the heavy load down on the footlocker at the end of her bunk. “You didn’t have to do that.” Her voice was small and gruff, the way it got when she was trying to conceal pleasure she didn’t think she should show. 

He shrugged; that was self-evident. He wanted to. At least feeding her would be less dangerous for his self-control than washing her hair.

Cassian didn’t understand his own reactions to Jyn. Half the time being around her made him calmer and more centred than he'd felt in years, and the other half he could barely look at her without feeling like he was broadcasting his entire soul for the galaxy to see. 

He wanted her, of course, but that didn’t explain everything else. Sex would have been relatively simple. The weakness that hit him in the solar plexus at the sight of her, how much he wanted to make her smile… that was the confusing part. He’d used the fact she needed help with her hair as a transparent excuse to touch her, to care for her, to be closer to her. And all it had done was make him hungry for more. 

Speaking of hunger—he tossed a napkin on Jyn’s lap and passed the tin plate over so she could rest it on her knees and brace it against her right arm. 

She took up a fork in her left hand, holding it awkwardly. “Don’t watch,” she grumbled. “I eat like a rancor these days.” 

Maybe not as messy, but she was certainly as fast. Within a couple of minutes the plate was scraped clean and her satisfied sigh burrowed into his ear. He remembered the small noises she’d made while he was brushing her hair and how she’d slowly relaxed, each bone in her spine settling against him in a trusting way that had made it hard for him to breathe. 

She elbowed him gently with her good arm. “Some of this is for you, I hope.” 

“I already ate.” A few hours ago, but the statement was still true. Her eyes flickered sideways skeptically, and he cocked an eyebrow at her, letting her know he was holding firm on this point. 

She huffed out a tiny sigh and picked up her fork again, spearing the last dumpling and holding it out. “Well, I’ve had three of these and I want to leave room for dessert. Come on, share.” She prodded the fork toward his face, waving the morsel under his nose. 

An unwilling smile caught at the corner of his mouth. “Fine.” 

“Open up,” she ordered. He did, and she inserted the dumpling in his mouth. He closed his lips around the tines as she pulled it out gently. 

She was watching his lips, and he swallowed quickly, unnerved by her regard. “There. Now eat your dessert.”

Jyn eyed the pastry left on the tray, oozing a gloss of honey onto the plate. “I'll give that to Baze, he likes them. They’re too sweet for me.”

He didn’t believe her—very little was too sweet for Jyn—but he picked up the jogan fruit instead and pierced the rind with his thumbnail. A fine mist of juice burst into the air and the tart-sweet scent made his mouth water. Carefully, not wanting to bruise the tender flesh, he peeled it and pulled the narrow segments apart. 

Jyn licked her lips. His own tongue darted out and flickered in unthinking mimicry. He didn’t know what possessed him ( _oh, don’t lie to yourself, Cassian_ ) to hold the piece of fruit out to her between his fingers. 

She could have taken it from him with her good hand… but she didn’t. Instead she leaned over, her eyes slanted up to watch him through dark lashes. She curled her fingers around his wrist to hold it steady, placed her lips around the fruit—delicately, precisely, barely grazing his skin with her tongue—and drew it out from between his fingers. Her lips shone with juice as she worked her jaw to chew and swallow.

Cassian's breath reversed and he choked on air. Blood thundered in his head. Jyn was closer suddenly. He realized that was because he’d leaned down toward her, his eyes fastened to her mouth. His hand was still floating in the space between them, tethered by hers around his wrist. He could feel her breath on his fingers. He touched the corner of her mouth, blotting up a single sticky drop of purple juice. 

What was he doing? He told himself to straighten up and move away, but then he heard the tiny catch in her own breathing as she stared back at him. His pulse picked up again. She tilted her head, keeping her eyes on his, and pulled him a bare centimetre closer by her grip on his wrist. Close enough for their lips to touch. 

It was like an electrical shock. His nervous system whited out for a moment and no other part of his body existed: only his lips where he felt the slightly rough pressure of hers, the soft wet warmth. She tasted sweet and sharp together, the essence of the fruit on her lips tangy against his, stinging the chapped skin. 

The kiss drew on and on, delicious, sweet and slow as trickling honey. Cassian had to close his eyes. Just the touch and taste of Jyn’s mouth was overwhelming without any added sensory input. Her fingers trailed slowly up his arm, across his shoulder, and gripped the back of his neck, warm and startlingly soft except where the callouses on her palm rasped.

He shifted, thinking only of how to get closer to her without hurting her injured arm. His knee jostled the empty plate on her lap and it clattered to the floor. Her hand clamped down on his neck as they both jumped in mutual startlement. His pulse rabbiting against her palm, his eyes snapped open and he stared down at her.

Jyn was always beautiful; that was nothing new, but the expression on her face was. Her eyes were half-lidded, her lips parted with breath coming quick between them. She looked... stunned, maybe, by her own reaction. Or his. He felt suddenly shy and wondered if the yearning hope he felt was obvious on his face. He looked away, trying to crush his want back down into a more manageable size.

“Cassian?” Her voice wobbled on his name, and the doubt he heard spurred him to bring his hands up and slide his palms along her jaw, cradle her face with all the tenderness he could, bring her as close as he wanted her. Apparently, astonishingly, that was where she wanted to be too. 

She kissed him again: greedy and eager this time, like she was discovering something entirely new, like no one else had ever been so brave as to hold her and learn her taste, and he spared an instant of pity for all the people who’d never have the intoxicating experience of kissing Jyn Erso.

Their mouths whispered together, apart, together. Bolder than he’d dared to imagine, he tasted the freckles on her cheekbone, searched for the softest, most tender spot below her ear. Her left hand furrowed into his hair, stroked down his cheek and held his face pressed to hers. He let himself breathe her in. 

“Cassian,” she murmured in his ear. “I think I need your help with something else.”

He held back a shiver at the sensation of her breath moving over his skin and the sound of his name in that teasing register. _Just ask,_ he wanted to beg, _just tell me. Whatever you want. Just ask._ But all he could manage was a low, rough noise of inquiry.

She drew back and looked up at him again, her eyes still languidly half-closed but hungry. Her nails scraped small, tingling trails along the muscle of his neck. “Help me take these clothes off.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Same Sea" by Lights.
> 
> I hang out on Tumblr at [incognitajones](http://incognitajones.tumblr.com/).


End file.
